


ignore the body

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:11:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce has gone years without anyone touching him for anything other than to try to capture the Hulk. He probably shouldn't be so surprised that Tony does touch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ignore the body

**Author's Note:**

> A few references at the beginning to The Unbearable Lightness of Being but it should all still make sense if you haven't read it!
> 
> ”When we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.” The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

He’s somewhere in the midst of the Prague Spring with Tereza and Tomáš when he feels the hands on the back of his neck. Bruce can feel his heartbeat thumping in his chest and he starts counting out the rhythm from years of habit.

“You look tense,” Tony says. Bruce tries to imagine the look on Tony’s face but comes up short.

“You would be too if you were reading about love and lust and existential crises during the Cold War.” It’s been so long since anyone has touched him for anything other than to restrain him.

Tony’s hands move to his shoulders and start to rub out years of muscular tension. Bruce’s breathing is starting to even out but he’s still waiting for the catch, half expecting this is a dream and he’ll wake up in a cage.

Bruce is willing himself to stay in the moment. He’s with Tony. This is safe. When Tony sits down next to him on the couch, the body heat is warm and comfortable. He lets himself relax a little more when Tony moves in closer to him and run his hands down the front of Bruce’s old t-shirt.

Bruce sighs as Tony’s hand roams under his shirt. His skin feels like it’s on overdrive. The years he’s spent on the run makes his skin so sensitive. He thinks about nerve endings and how many of them are firing right now. There were times Bruce thought he’d never be touched this way again.

The drag of Tony’s fingertips feels so strange on his bare skin. He thinks the briefest adjustment of Tony’s hand would send him collapsing into a fit of laughter. Bruce had forgotten what it was like to be ticklish, to have someone draw out those spots on the body. He stifles a shudder as Tony’s hand slides across his stomach.

“C’mon, Bruce. Look at me.”

Bruce drops his eyes briefly before shifting to look at Tony. He’s not even sure how he’s supposed to act. His best friend, maybe his only friend, is touching him in a way so intimate it’s like some sort of dream. Bruce has himself under too much control to cry but that tightness in his chest is still there. He’s thought about touching Tony himself but had it carefully filed away under the long list of things he wants but will never get. It’s not his fear of losing control that’s kept him away—he figured that out with time—but who would want him?

He doesn’t remember the last time someone has touched him so carefully either. He thinks about helicopters and Ross always waiting with leather straps and sedatives. But it’s like Tony can tell as he lightly slides fingers across his sternum. Bruce is waiting for the pain to start because that’s how touching always ends. Any moment he expects Tony’s hand to freeze and mutter apologies that he doesn’t mean to fall from his mouth.

Tony tugs at his shirt and slides it off over his head. Bruce helps him as much as he can and watches a physical layer of protection fall to the floor. Tony shrugs out of his own shirt and Bruce admires the glow of the arc reactor. Tony is brightness where Bruce only feels dim. How can he handle such exposure?

Tony kisses him, soft and careful, and Bruce thinks he can do this. Arms wrap around him and he can’t help but lean into Tony’s embrace. He kisses Tony’s neck, moves to his collarbone. The feel of Tony’s hand rubbing circles into his back makes him sigh.

“Let me take care of you,” Tony says, dropping a kiss into the crook of Bruce’s neck. He nods his assent, all he wants is for Tony to keep moving and keep making him feel things he’s forgotten about. Bruce has only ever felt this wanted by one other person and that was before the Hulk ruined things.

It’s the tenderness behind it and the softness in Tony’s voice that makes Bruce say yes. He’s willing to try again.


End file.
